


while I gotcha in sight

by lamphouse



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Cowboy Kink, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Making Out, They Don't Even Fuck I'm Just Wordy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:42:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26410576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamphouse/pseuds/lamphouse
Summary: As a general rule, Eddie doesn't daydream, but it's easy to picture himself standing on a porch somewhere waiting for Richie to come in from the noon sun or sitting elbow to elbow with him on a rock somewhere in the desert, mica hills sparkling pink in the sunset, the last heat of the day fading until it's only Richie's body next to his and the small fire before them.In which Eddie has kind of a cowboy thing but mostly a Richie thing.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 12
Kudos: 87





	while I gotcha in sight

Admittedly, there are plenty of things Eddie likes about long-distance dating the love of his life. Though less apparent than the cons—like the fact that he can't kiss Richie whenever he wants and, if Richie wants to avoid a serious conversation, all he has to do is not pick up his phone—there are still plenty of pros. He likes picking Richie up from the airport and watching movies together over the phone and snooping through Richie's bookshelves while he picks up dinner. Eddie (Eddie!) even likes flying with nothing more than a single (neatly organized) backpack: no laptop, reliant on stealing Richie's shirts to sleep in, and each time leaving a piece of himself in Chicago. It gives them time to savor everything, exploring each step in full before they take the next together—committed, yes, but lingering along their way to get the most out of each moment.

By now Eddie's accumulated half a drawer at Richie's place, bringing his life over piecemeal in the neat stack of books he's bought in the airport on Richie's nightstand and the toothbrush in his bathroom cabinet—not the sink because that's absolutely disgusting, something he had to lovingly drill into Richie the first night they spent together. He has a designated mug from Richie's absurd collection, an old 90s looking thing from the Kennedy Space Center that Richie always presents to him as, "Your rocket fuel, my good sir," in that stupid butler voice Eddie loves so much. He has a place there.

It's great. It's perfect. It's so fucking fun—honestly, it feels like playing house, and Eddie's a forty-one year old man, he wouldn't describe anything he does as anything adjacent to play, but it's true. Hanging out with Richie is just as fun as it was when they were kids, if not more, and if adults don't have fun like this then their fucking loss. Every night's like a sleepover; every day's like summer vacation.

This time Eddie's here for an entire week, setting fire to some of his workaholic stockpile of PTO, and still the novelty hasn't worn off as he keeps getting more: Richie doing laundry, Richie in Skype meetings, Richie _grocery shopping_. Eddie finds himself romanticizing the stupidest things like how Richie sorts mail (junk, bills, indeterminate) because he still gets _mail_ , he doesn't like the idea that he could be losing money somewhere and not notice, aw. He was wearing the same five shirts on rotation until Eddie asked about a couple trips ago and Richie, embarrassed, had admitted to doing it on purpose to impress Eddie. The fact that the shirts in question were indistinguishable from the rest of his wardrobe was endearing enough; getting to dig through Richie's bursting closet and make him put on the world's dorkiest fashion show was icing on the cake. Also, watching Richie buy groceries in a fuzzy denim jacket and orange cargo shorts was very fun.

Tonight, though, Eddie's more preoccupied by his own outfit. They're going to dinner with Bev, who's staying with a friend here during her dragging divorce, at an Indian place nice enough that they have a reservation (under Eddie's name because either of the other two would garner attention, fucking apparently). It's forced Eddie to realize that while he's prepared for anything that involves Richie looking at him, he's now suddenly aware of the publicity of it all. His friends are all famous; Eddie is not. He doesn't know what to do with being _seen_ like that.

But it's fine. He looks nice, and that's apparently all that matters—and actually a quick Google search is enough to bring up shitty pap photos of Richie and Bill that prove not even that is necessary, much to the Losers group chat's delight. He has the dark green sweater he left here a few weeks ago, though, so it doesn't smell too much like airport, and he had to go to CVS because Richie doesn't own a fucking iron, of course, but he's got on shoes that already have Bev's express approval and he's ready.

He's not nervous and he's ready. Okay, he's nervous, but he's still ready; he's pacing the room, but it's in front of the door with his keys in hand, so that has to count for something.

"Come on, Rich, let's go."

He's not worried about Richie, though. Richie's solid. Richie's a rock, but like one of those big ones, those boulders you see in postcards from coastal Oregon. Richie's an idiot and Eddie should probably be more worried about him doing insane shit, but to be honest, he'd be right there with him: Richie is tethering; he's the string, Eddie's the kite.

Maybe he should be worried, though, he thinks when Richie appears from the hallway, because when he's not on the lookout this happens.

"What are you wearing?"

"Huh?" Richie straightens from where he was picking out his shoes from the pile by the door. "Oh, you like it? I found it in the top of the hall closet, still in a bag. I bought it a couple years ago and totally forgot."

The "it" in question is one of those flower-embroidered, pearl-snapped Western shirts, bright yellow with black shoulders and cuffs. Despite sitting in a bag for who knows how long, it's crisp and smooth across Richie's broad chest, done up all but one button and tucked into his black pants (that maybe aren't even jeans?) with a belt. He looks... nice. Ridiculous. Handsome. Uh, broad. Like he could carry a sack of grain or a baby sheep over his shoulder no problem.

Actually, the single word that best describes it is "tantalizing," but that makes Eddie feel psychotic to think, so he ignores it.

"There's another one that's got rockets," Richie continues, oblivious to all this, "but I'm feeling the yellow. Hey, do you see any tags?"

He twists to look over his own shoulder but Eddie isn't paying attention, too focused on how the flowers continue down the side of his arm to the elbow, the fabric not really shifting as it fits him so exactly. It's not that Richie's ripped or anything, he's just... big. The shirt is exactly his size, no more, no less. He, uh, fills it out nicely, Eddie thinks to himself and only himself.

"That's like... a cowboy shirt," Eddie points out, feeling grey matter drip out of his ear.

"Uh, yeah?" Richie says. "Yeehaw."

He then does the hang loose gesture, which Eddie would ordinarily tease him mercilessly for, but it's kind of hard to do that when he has no remaining brain with which to form words.

Richie, meanwhile, turns to the mirror to tug at his hair. "Do you think I should wear a hat?"

"A... cowboy hat?"

"Yeah, too much. But I've got a fedora, like an actual one, and that's black..." He turns back around to see Eddie still staring inscrutably at him, though Eddie assumes everything he's feeling is painted on his face. "What?"

"You own a cowboy hat?"

"Yeah? I don't know why you're surprised, if any one of us is gonna have a cowboy hat lying around it's me. Or Haystack, but he'd mean it. Here, hang on."

Richie disappears again. As soon as he's out of sight, Eddie breathes heavily, out and then back in, trying to process that reaction. Maybe it's just that he's never seen Richie anywhere near cleaned up. That's got to be it, right? He could be wearing any shirt with buttons and a crisp collar that naturally draws the eye to the column of his throat and Eddie would be reacting like this.

That theory goes out the window when Richie returns with two hats, both black, and leans in the doorway.

"Howdy, partner." He drops the cowboy hat on his head with a little ta-da gesture; Eddie swallows his own tongue. "Whaddya think?"

_I want to sit in front of him on a horse and press back until I can feel every one of those shirt buttons against my spine. Or maybe behind with my arms around him so I can just slide my hand—_

Nope.

"You..."

Just then Richie's eyes light up. "Oh man, I forgot about your cowboy thing."

Doe-eyed, Eddie feels the headlights glare in his brain. "What?"

"Yeah, you and Bill and the fucking cap guns. Man, you were obsessed with those old tapes the Denbros had—"

Though now's not the time for it, Eddie does take a second to appreciate how Richie skips right over the expected dirty connotations and instead ends up in some genuinely sweet, nostalgic excitement.

Still, he's traipsing dangerously close to Eddie's newfound truth, so he interrupts, "We're going to dinner. In public. At a nice place. Why are you dressing as a cowboy?"

Richie picks up on something—though it can't be the whole truth, as he doesn't make a big deal of it—and pauses. "Why are you so worked up about this?"

"You look ridiculous," Eddie says instead of jumping him. Everything he has done in the past five minutes has been instead of jumping Richie, though, and the stress of it shows.

" _Yeah_. I _always_ look ridiculous." He has a point. "And it's not like I'm gonna wear the hat for real, I was just inspired by your little boots and—"

"My _what_?"

Richie waves at Eddie's feet, encased in smooth black leather. Eddie glances down and back bewilderedly. "Your sexy bitch boots!"

"They're normal shoes!"

They maybe have a bit of a heel, fair, but that's just how they came! It's not like Eddie sought them out specifically. And okay, there's a zipper along the inside, but it's mostly cosmetic and he only uses them because it's better for the leather, avoids stretching. It also has nothing to do with how he's cuffed his jeans.

"They cover your ankles and then some, man, they're definitely boots."

"What is it with you and my ankles?" Eddie asks, thinking back to last week's phone sex when Richie went on a wistful and unsexy tangent about the Victorian bony-ness of the aforementioned body part as apparently recalled poking out of his pajamas.

Richie in the present, presumably thinking of the same moment, flushes and pushes ahead. "They're definitely boots, man, like sexy, street fashion model boots, and I support you, but the first step is admitting it."

"Okay, well, it's not like they're cowboy boots," Eddie says pedantically.

"Yeah, but you know my brain." Richie shrugs like it's not deeply romantic and then gestures as if mapping a winding thread through the air. "Point A to trapezoid to 17b."

"Still." Eddie folds his arms in an attempt to look severe, but the action sparks something in Richie's eyes—something knowing. "No, wait—"

"Oh my god," Richie says very loudly.

"No!"

"You don't just have a cowboy thing," Richie continues over him, "you _have_ a _cowboy thing_."

"I do not!" It takes every muscle in Eddie's body not already dedicated to keeping his hands to himself to also stop from stomping his feet like he's ten years old again. "You don't even really look like—" He feels like even saying the word would admit too much. "—one, it's just the hat and the shirt."

The omission, however, speaks just as loudly, and a smirk slides over Richie's face in reply: his bastard face, as Eddie mentally refers to it. He can see Richie's arms shift under his shirt as he tucks his hands in his pockets—not in his usual "I am trying to somehow make myself small because I find something incredibly awkward" way but something more calculatedly lazy that should warn Eddie of what's coming next.

"Well, I hate to disappoint, darlin'—"

It's less like a bucket of cold water and more like one of gasoline being added to the fire, though the shiver that runs down his spine is the same. "Absolutely not, do not do a voice right now—"

"But betcha I could borrow a bolo tie from Ben so's you've got something to hold onto while—" With Eddie's judicious application of elbow, Richie slides out the drawl as neatly as he did in. "Oof, _Eds_."

Eddie twists back like nothing happened, not thinking about how easily Richie lets Eddie get up in his space, or how he would swear he could feel the heat of Richie's body even through both their layers.

"If you're gonna make fun of me, I can just leave." Eddie hooks his thumb back at the door, keys jangling dully in his fist, but Richie wraps his arms around Eddie's waist dramatically.

"No, babe, I'd love to ride you like a stallion." He kisses Eddie's forehead. "Or is this more of a 'save a horse, ride a cowboy' situation?"

"Never say those words again."

Richie tugs him in closer, sort of silly in the way that's meant to disguise how serious it is. Eddie, of course, lets him, though he doesn't miss the glance down Richie gives him when he realizes that Eddie's boots bring them closer to eye to eye. There's the tiniest smirk in the corner of his mouth at that, but Eddie isn't paying much attention because he finally has his hands on Richie's chest, prolonged enough to feel the radiating heat he was excepting but is still enthralled by.

Now he can feel how soft the fabric is, the thickness of the embroidery that is rough one direction and silky the other. The small arrows beneath the threaded flowers are pockets, Eddie now sees, which is almost adorable except for how he wants to hook the fingers of one hand in that pocket to drag him down the last few inches between them.

Instead Eddie ducks up under the brim of Richie's hat until he's got his mouth on Richie's and his hands clenched in what of Richie's hair he can get at. Even through the chaos of the kiss, he's careful not to dislodge Richie's hat. He likes it more than he should, probably, but standing under the brim with Richie feels somehow safe; there he can imagine sharing that shade on a hot day, sun on his shoulders and Richie's cool lips and hands on his face.

It probably says something that he can't look his own desire in the face long enough to string these fleeting images together into a proper narrative, but there is still the through line of warmth: of the sun, of the earth, of Richie as he is now, pressed up against Eddie in the real world. As a general rule, Eddie doesn't daydream, but it's easy to picture himself standing on a porch somewhere waiting for Richie to come in from the noon sun or sitting elbow to elbow with him on a rock somewhere in the desert, mica hills sparkling pink in the sunset, the last heat of the day fading until it's only Richie's body next to his and the small fire before them.

The Eddie of real life holds on tighter to the back of Richie's head as he pushes in again, going up on his toes slightly as Richie's answering hum resonates between them. Richie's hands wander up over the back of Eddie's sweater, gentle but firm, both soothing and spurring him on when Eddie presses even closer. He accidentally pushes the hat off with his own head and it falls to the floor, ignored in favor of a muffled moan from Richie when the move brings their hips into closer alignment.

Their belts clatter together, reminding Eddie again of the neatness of the look, how it's not only this specific dormant thing that Richie's inadvertently activated but the general fact that he looks nice, that he wanted to look nice not because he cares about the given propriety of any situation but because he knew Eddie does and wanted to—what, make that easier on him? Show Eddie he can take things seriously? That he takes Eddie seriously?

Whatever the answer is, it makes Eddie run hotter, makes his movements more restless. He's almost stepping on Richie's toes now as his hands skim down to grab his shirt again, right over his pecs where Eddie, pressing hard enough, can feel his heart beat. His fingers skirt the little pearl snaps, which are straining somewhat as Richie continues to cling to Eddie's back, pulling him forward by back of his sweater so much his hands are almost at Eddie's sides.

A distant part of Eddie screams about the stress on the cashmere. Another part smothers the first with a pillow. The rest of him continues to set shit on fire, which here, as most places, is a metaphor for desire.

"Richie," he says, quiet and low in the gap between them.

"Mhm."

He puts both hands on Richie's cheeks and kisses him succinctly. "Come here."

Rather than quibble about how he can't get much closer than this, Richie ducks to kiss his jaw and behind his ear. It's a wonderful feeling, but now that Eddie's mouth is free he can't stop it from running defensively.

"I don't have a cowboy thing."

Richie laughs a little, not moving too far, and briefly presses closer where they're dick to dick. "You sure about that?"

"I mean, it's not a _thing_ thing, I've never—"

Eddie is still thinking about those buttons, tiny and pretty and delicate: three things that don't immediately come to mind with Richie but somehow make sense. Richie can be pretty—Richie is very pretty, when he blushes at Eddie's plainspoken declarations, when he does something sweet he'd rather not be called out on—and he can be delicate too, without ever making Eddie feel like _he's_ delicate, always because Richie is afraid of breaking this thing between them, not Eddie himself.

He can even be tiny, curled up on himself to laugh, and now Eddie's mind is wandering further from sense because they've switched places in the fantastical tableau and Eddie is the one coming in from the ranch to meet Richie on the porch, or maybe in the saloon, where Richie is a vaudeville singer and stands under the lights with his shiny buttons and shinier grin while Eddie waits in the corner with a drink for each of them. Imaginary Richie is on that stage now, but he doesn't sound nice and he doesn't sound like the Texan drawl Richie had put on earlier. He just sounds like Richie, because that's always been how Eddie likes him best. And isn't that the answer?

"It's you," Eddie finishes. "It's that I love you."

Richie's pawing at his back pauses and he goes still next to Eddie's ear, not so much in a startled way so much as an introspective one. "I love you too."

Eddie twists his head to look at Richie as much as he can without moving, his bruised lips and wide eyes almost in profile. He frees one hand to slide Richie's glasses onto his head to avoid smudging them further before saying, "Good. Now get back to work."

He's rewarded with a real laugh and a brief kiss before Richie returns to, yes, his work, with a, "Yes, sir."

His shoulders shift as he moves down Eddie's neck, glasses cutting into the space under his jaw in a way that makes Eddie's eyes roll back in his head behind his eyelids. He grapples at those buttons, fingers catching in the space between that are even hotter than Richie's mouth, and Eddie's pulling before he can think about it, snapping open the top three buttons as he jerks back to catch the sight.

"What."

"What?" Richie follows Eddie's eye line down to his own chest, which is covered by a black t-shirt.

"I thought—"

 _You thought what, Edward_ , his snide inner monologue asks as Richie goes back to kissing his neck, _you would tear open his shirt and it'd be like a romance novel cover, his hairy chest bursting forth like whatever on the prow of a pirate ship, you moron?_

"Do you not wear shirts under your button-ups?" Richie's nose nudges under Eddie's collar. "You, Eddie 'Fastidious' Kaspbrak?"

For a single, stupid second, Eddie considers asking Richie to take off his shirts and put the top one on again so Eddie can start over, but then he remembers that this is Richie, who is still giving him shit about the Care Bears lunch box he had in the third grade, and thinks better of it.

"You know that's not what the F's for—"

"Oh I _know_ what the F is f—'"

Before Richie can finish that, Eddie kisses him, fists closing tighter around the edges of the shirt, resting on Richie's chest. It's only quick—with his attention span and poor Richie-centric self-control, Eddie doesn't trust himself with anything longer than a few seconds—just enough to derail Richie's train of thought.

He should've known that that would send Richie on another tangent.

"I know I don't act like it but I am an adult," Richie quips. "You've taken off my shirt before, man. It's September, it's the season of layers. Is it ruining the authenticity, did cowboys predate t-shirts?"

 _That's not the point, it's about the access, the_ — "Shut up, oh my god."

It isn't until Richie goes still that Eddie realizes how high his voice came out, still fixated on how different it feels, Richie's chest under his knuckles versus palms. He has but a moment to steel himself before Richie is pulling away to look at him.

"Eddie..."

"Don't."

"Oh my god..." Richie's hand comes up to lift Eddie's chin and look at him while he begs for the floor to swallow him whole. "Dude, are you—?"

"Shut the fuck up."

Eddie yanks him back down into a kiss that devolves immediately, Richie's hand still on his chin and mouth still open however that sentence was going to ruin Eddie's life. That last part pushes Eddie forward to slip his tongue along the back of Richie's teeth, almost like he's trying to physically stop the words coming.

Their bodies are glued together from knee to nose as Richie sucks on Eddie's tongue with, yes, a stoppered moan, but it's obvious it's a short-term strategy when he leans back to pant, "Who's the bodice ripper now, huh?"

"I hate you," Eddie gasps.

"You so do not."

"No, I really do, why are you still wearing clothes?"

Richie laughs too loudly for the way they're standing on top of each other, but Eddie can feel the sound in his chest, both of theirs, and can't think beyond that and getting his mouth back on Richie.

"Sorry I'm not Fabio," Richie gasps against Eddie's tongue. "Next time you want some good ol' fashioned boot knocking, let me know, I'll make sure to slut it up better in preparation."

Eddie hooks his hand over the collar of Richie shirt, tugging it down enough to scratch through Richie's chest hair. The stupid Western images loping through his head are getting worse and worse, Richie's head eclipsing the sun as Eddie lays beneath him on the ground, pulling a bandana away from his throat to lick the sweat there, the abstract sound of spurs jingling (thanks, Richie, for reminding him of that particularly stupid, pertinent euphemism). He wants Richie to push him to the floor and hang over him with his shirt half open like, yes, a fucking bodice ripper cover, so Eddie can have the heat and shade at the same time.

With another wet press of lips to lips, Eddie leans back to yank Richie's shirt out of his pants with one fell sweep that makes Richie whine before squirming his hands up and under the t-shirt t grab the necessary handfuls of skin at his sides. Richie's hand has drifted to Eddie's jaw in the interim and he pulls him in from there, their tongues tangling as Eddie claws up under his shirts.

Before he can exert enough pressure to snap open the rest of the shirt from the inside out, pushed to breaking with the both of them inside, Richie pulls back again. "Eddie, Eds, hold on, dinner."

"No thanks, I'm good," Eddie says nonsensically.

Richie laughs again, though it's much more stressed, high-pitched and erratic. "We have to meet Bev in—" He tugs Eddie's left hand out from under his shirt with no argument and checks his watch. "fifteen minutes, and it takes that to get there."

"Who cares?" Eddie kisses his ear, tugging with his teeth in a move proven to make Richie melt.

It still does, but Richie keeps his wits enough to answer. "You do, sweetheart. You know you do. Also Bev."

Like that, the spell's broken—or, if not broken, bent enough that Eddie can see the garish light of reality—leaving Eddie heaving cold breaths of the cool air of the apartment rather than whatever oxygen he can glean from Richie's exhales. Now's not the time to get into this, whatever it is, but Eddie wants, voraciously, and he's getting spoiled by the extended time together but it hasn't yet tamed the hurry out of him. He doesn't want to let Richie go. He never does, never _has_ , especially not now that he's got Richie in every way he's ever wanted, but he compromises by taking a step back: far enough that the heat between them has room to evaporate but not so far that he has to sacrifice his grip on Richie's shirt.

"Deep breaths, baby," Richie says quasi-sarcastically, his hand settling heavy but quiet on the back of Eddie's neck. "You've got it."

"Fuck off."

He glances down at Eddie's hands wrapped in his shirt and then past that to where he's definitely hard, something Eddie hadn't thought about until now but yep, there it is. "Something gives me the feeling you don't actually want that."

Of course he doesn't, but it's the sensible thing to do, and Sensible Eddie is coming back online in time to tell him to let go of those stupid flowers and take another half step back. He feels almost... ashamed, which doesn't quite make sense; despite a couple hang ups at the beginning about wanting to make everything perfect for this, the most important relationship Eddie's ever had, he hasn't ever felt like he couldn't tell Richie anything and not get an even more embarrassing admission in return. Like mutually assured destruction, but with fewer clothes.

Still, it can only go so far, and sometimes Eddie feels like he's run out over the cliff of his own limits, hanging in mid-air like a cartoon until he looks down and hurtles towards the ground—and no matter how many times he's literally and metaphorically jumped off a cliff with Richie right beside him, Eddie's always a little afraid that this will be the one time he won't be there, holding Eddie's hand, falling right with him. That this will be the time he's utterly alone the way he's always feared.

But then Richie does hold his hand, real and concrete, and squeezes until Eddie meets his eye. "You good, Eds?"

By asking, Richie makes the answer yes; he does that a lot, fixing things just by existing, by just being. "I'm fine."

"Yeah you are." Richie swings their linked hands up to kiss Eddie's knuckles and lets go. "Hey, I've got an idea."

He drops Eddie's hand and starts popping open the rest of his buttons, shrugging out of his shirt before Eddie can process what's happening. At least he isn't looking at Eddie while he's doing it, saving him a last shred of dignity in the form of letting him pick his jaw up off the floor unobserved, but it's still torturous. Eddie's fingers twitch. It's awful.

"Here."

He hands the shirt to Eddie, which is to say he holds it out and drops it onto Eddie's hands once they've unthinkingly drifted close enough. Eddie's not going to smell it or anything, not in front of him, but he does hold it tightly like he can squeeze the lingering heat from the fabric and absorb it himself.

It _is_ warm. It's Richie warmth, organic, homegrown, whatever. It's familiar from both the nights they've spent twined around each other and those he's spent alone, missing it vividly, and the cavalcade of memories distracts Eddie long enough to miss Richie pulling his t-shirt over his head.

"Trade?" he asks, loosely folding his black shirt up and straightening his glasses before they fall off his head.

"Tr—?" Oh, so _now_ Eddie's brain decides to reboot. He throws the shirt at Richie's head. "What the fuck, Richie?"

Richie shrugs, tossing his other shirt onto the couch a few feet behind them before sliding it on and doing up the buttons. The sharp snaps ring in Eddie's ears as he goes, starting from the bottom and covering his skin inch by inch. Usually Richie does his buttons from the top down (which is not weird for Eddie to have noticed) so even without his stupid smirk Eddie would know he's doing it on purpose.

"Shut up."

"I didn't say anything," Richie says, but his hands slow on the last few buttons, watching Eddie's eyes linger on his own lingering hands in some insanely stupid and sexy feedback loop.

"Seriously, fuck you."

Richie laughs, loud and awkward and curling up on himself before he peters off into high giggles. He does the last buttons easily before Eddie comes after him and catches him as Eddie's fists fall flat against his chest.

"You're such a dick," Eddie says against his mouth, but it's a simple kiss, admirably restrained, now that he's remembered they have somewhere to be. He allows himself a single second to slide his fingers under the placket of Richie's shirt, nails skimming his skin under the hair until he feels Richie's breath stutter against his mouth. _Tit for tat_ , he thinks to himself, then vows to never, ever say out loud.

"Can't help it." Richie wraps his arms more firmly around Eddie's waist and leans back, lifting him momentarily even with his boots. Normally Eddie would kick his shins in protest, but instead he wraps one arm across the span of Richie's shoulders while the other clenches his sleeve. "Every time you think I'm sexy I gotta milk the moment for all it's worth."

"Oh, so you're an idiot too."

"Yeah, but I'm your idiot," Richie simpers. "The second we get into the car I'm buying more of these stupid shirts on eBay, just so you know. If it ain't broke..."

"You're the thing that ain't broke, dumbass." Eddie pokes his chest, which doesn't not answer the question. "I think everything you do is sexy. Obviously."

Richie throws his hands up. "Oh, obviously! Obviously, he says!"

"Yes, obviously! Sorry, was the way I was just trying to eat your face because you fucking wore a shirt not enough of a clue? The way I fly halfway across the country every few weeks to spend eighty percent of a weekend fucking you?"

"I thought that was cuz you're madly in love with me," Richie says, but a shy smile is breaking across his face that makes Eddie want to maul him, affectionately.

"That too, dipshit."

"But I'm your dipshit," he says again, but this time with a casual sincerity that makes Eddie feel like a felled tree.

"Recycling material already, huh?"

"Okay, comedy police." Richie's face softens when it becomes apparent something is still up with Eddie. "Hey."

Richie tips their foreheads together and reaches up to grab Eddie's hand, holding it the way he does sometimes like a an actor in a Shakespeare play, like Eddie's hand is a precious object to hold up to the light. His thumb fits right to the center of Eddie's palm like two spoons nestled in one another, an egg in an egg cup. They fit together there so well that sometimes Eddie thinks if he looked close enough he would find Richie's fingerprint there, ridges matching the swirling indents of his thumb so they fit together on every level.

He squeezes Eddie's hand like this once before reaching up to undo a middle button and fit Eddie's hand back under his shirt, palm over Richie's sternum and fingers reaching towards his heart. The action is as charged as it was earlier, but in a different way: instead of the fire tornado of emotion that swirled through Eddie earlier at the thought of all that skin underneath waiting to be revealed, now he revels in the fact that that warmth means Richie is real, living and within reach. He hears in Richie's heartbeat the reassurance that they are both affected and wanting and that Richie is as human as he is. He hears in how Richie's breath catches that he's just as vulnerable.

"All yours."

Eddie takes a deep breath against Richie's face, holding the half spent air as he tries not to sink his claws into Richie's chest like he's going to rip his heart right out. It's a powerful statement, but it isn't anything new; even if he's never said the words before, Eddie knows it the way he knows that he belongs to Richie, that they belong to each other together, a shared state between them like that photo of the man and woman with the bow and arrow leaning back on opposite sides, each trusting the other to not let go and shoot them down.

"Jesus Christ..." he breathes out, opening his eyes to watch Richie's face with the blurry sight of his hand under the flowers.

The gentle curve of Richie's smile fills his view. "Too much?"

Eddie's fingers twitch, an embarrassingly macro feeling when they're pressed this close. "Kinda, yeah."

Richie's amused breath huffs over Eddie's lips before he twists to kiss his cheek.

"Gotcha."

He leans back then, taking Eddie's hand with him the way he had before like nothing has happened and returning it to him. It's only when he's fumbling to fix his button that the veneer drops long enough for him to shoot Eddie a nervous glance.

Eddie wants to kiss him then (shocking, he knows) but if he did they would never leave this square of hallway, let alone the apartment, so he contents himself with saying, "Don't think this means you can get out of anything by pulling this sappy shit now, though," and knowing Richie will hear what he really means, which is _I love you_.

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it," Richie beams, receiving him loud and clear. "You've never made things easy for anyone in your life."

Eddie nods, patting his chest once, guardedly. "Gotta make you work for it."

"Anything for you, lover," Richie says, and he bestows upon Eddie a kiss. "Whatever gets you going, my dear. Your kink is my command."

"Alright, well, don't make it weird."

"No, I get it! Some people get off on their partner wearing lingerie or, like, a secret butt plug in public, but you," Richie continues over Eddie's preemptive scoff, "you get off on a middle-aged dude sweating directly into his vintage cowboy shirt."

He intends to say something at least a little mean, but instead what comes out is, "It's vintage?"

"Oh my god, does that do something for you?" Richie laughs, though it goes airy in the middle when Eddie slides two fingers back under the placket of Richie's shirt, content with just that now that he knows they're on the same vulnerable page. "You need authenticity in your roleplay? Cuz sweetheart, I hate to tell you this, but I'm pretty sure this shirt was still made after cowboys were a thing."

Eddie shoves him away with the same hand and stoops to pick up his keys where he must have dropped them at some point. He pointedly doesn't think about what it says that he didn't hear them hitting the hardwood.

"Now you're all keyed up but for a reason," Richie points out helpfully. "See? You're welcome."

Eddie gives him a cold look that would make a weaker, less obnoxiously doting man crumble but instead makes Richie kiss his wrinkled forehead on his way to grab their jackets.

"Bev's gonna know, you get that, right?" Eddie shrugs his on when Richie offers it. "One look and that's it—you know I don't have a poker face, man."

"I know," Richie coos. He kisses Eddie's forehead again, then his cheek, then the corner of his mouth. "But in my defense, she probably already thinks we're fooling around anyway, as we are officially late, I'm pretty sure."

"Shit."

With a quick glance at his watch and, then, at the phone in his pocket, which has a series of text notifications from Bev which start with her arrival at the restaurant and end in a series of less than discreet emojis. Richie reads them upside down before ducking down to get his hat—not the cowboy one, the marginally less discriminating fedora, though Eddie still blushes at the memory.

"Better hustle up there, then, pardner," Richie says with enough of an added goofy inflection that Eddie knows is for his benefit and thus loathes. "Git along little dogie."

Then, of course, he smacks Eddie's ass on his way to the door.

"I could kill you, you know. No court could convict me."

Richie holds open the door and stands there so Eddie has no choice but to walk under his arm stretched above them.

"No better way to die, darlin'," he adds in that fucking voice just as Eddie's about to pass him and Eddie is forced to admit that as much as he prefers Richie's actual voice, this one still makes his spine melt.

Instead of firing back, Eddie kisses him, one hand on his cheek and slouched enough against the door that Richie has to bend to meet him.

It's a good kiss: simple and sincere. He pulls Richie down more and glances his hips up to underline the fact (both to himself and Richie) that Richie's affected too, Eddie isn't in this alone, but doesn't push. It's enough that Richie is hanging over and around him, pliant and sweet. This kiss isn't about devouring. This is coming home, regardless of period dress, regardless of the fact that technically they're leaving. Home is wherever and whenever he is with Richie; though the details may vary, that stays constant.

When Eddie pulls back, he takes the time to watch Richie resurface, blinking sweetly back into reality. He can't help pressing a lingering kiss to Richie's cheek, guiding him down with both hands on his jaw until Eddie can kiss his forehead, returning the favor, feeling doting.

"Let's go," he says. "I wanna see you forget how spicy their chicken biryani is again in front of Bev so we can make fun of you together."

"That happened once!" Richie trips down the stairs after him. "And hey, you're one to talk, Mister 'Live Fast, Die Young, I'm Pretty Sure If I Can Fight A Killer Clown I Can Overcome IBS By Sheer Force of Will'."

"At least I'm not a wimp."

"No, you're just easy." Eddie backhands his chest now. "Hey, need me to drive?"

"Fuck you, Richie."

"I'm just saying, you know what they say about distracted driving..."

"Seriously, fuck. You."

"This is what I'm saying! If you can't get it out of your head maybe I should—"

Eddie smacks his hand away with the keys, jangling loudly through the parking garage, though quickly drowned out by Richie's cackles and the unlocking beep of the car.

"Hey, hey, Eds," Richie says as he dances around to the passenger side of his car—which is, contrary to the expectations set by his mid-life crisis rental in Derry, a squashed, dorky looking silver Subaru—and cranes over the roof to grin directly in Eddie's face, hat held on against the quick burst of wind by one hand on the top of his head.

"What?" Eddie bites, yanking open his door to underscore it just as he feels his phone buzz in his pocket. Probably Bev. She's gonna give them so much shit...

Richie drops his hat on Eddie's head, tugging him back out of his thoughts. "Hi-yo Silver, away!"

He ducks into the car as Eddie laughs, filling the garage all on his own, echoing like the wide open plains. As they pull out of the garage, dusk beginning around them, he thinks if he looks close he can see flecks of mica in the concrete.

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be a dumb pwp and then I reread the scene where his arm gets broken and he thinks about the mica in the sidewalk, echoing the scene where he talks about reading western novels, and all my cowboy eddie feelings came back. swear to GOD one of these days I'm gonna set out to write smut and not immediately get sidetracked into introspective character studies but today is just not that day!!! 
> 
> richie's shirt is [this](https://www.garmentory.com/sale/the-canyon-vintage/tops-shirts/884633-vintage-rockmount-ranch-wear-shirt) (technically there's a men's version, but I like the simpler flowers of the women's) and if anyone draws this you HAVE to show me, I will die. (the [rocket one](https://rockmount.com/products/mens-atomic-cowboy-embroidery-western-shirt-6726-blk-turq-sml) richie mentions is also real!)
> 
> title from shania twain's "[I'm gonna getcha good](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlcPmDDaOCg)" bc I know literally two of her songs but when I read the lyrics to this I started cackling, it fits surprisingly well. consider this also an homage to "years go by like days," which I read for the first time a year & four days ago lmao
> 
> ETA: [an absolutely WONDERFUL cowboy richie](https://twitter.com/wormsquirms/status/1331444766949707777) from dear rat (affectionate, nominal)
> 
> taking a leave of absence frm uni this year so I'm on twitter and tumblr basically all the time now so come say hi!
> 
> tumblr @[lamphous](http://lamphous.tumblr.com/)  
> twitter @[Iamphouse](http://twitter.com/Iamphouse)


End file.
